DO MESS WITH IT!: A Sociopolitical Study of Littering and the Role of Southern and Nearby States

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Abstract

Littering is an environmental crime in the United States,
creating a danger to public health and safety. Although
environmental quality studies single out the Southern States as “
having the most befouled” ecological conditions in America, experts
have done little research on littering’ s impingement upon
jurisdictional environmental degradation using multivariate
statistical analysis. This research Is twofold: First is found an
examination of social and political mores in regard to state
ecological surface degradation, with an emphasis on twelve
conventional southern and three nearby “fringe” states exhibiting
southern characteristics. Second, the research examines the impact
of the most salient sociopolitical factors that may influence
littering, through environmental quality indicators and their
consequences for the fifty United States.

A review of relevant literature, on the American sociopolitical,
legal, commercial and governmental activities that both create and
curtail litter, focusing on the South and nearby states, is
discussed. The review arrives at a conceptual, “real world”
framework, identifying noteworthy factors that may lead to
statewide environmental degradation: geographic location,
demographic dynamics, environmental budgetary spending, political
culture and availability of existing litter reducing legislation.
These aspects become independent variables, operationalized into
testable hypotheses through a multivariant model of regression
analysis, with dependent variables of livability (quality of life)
scores, waste disposal tonnage prices, and daily per person waste
disposal for each state.

Findings indicate the created regression models were
insufficient to support an idea that scores, pricings and disposal
amounts make adequate stateoriented ecological degradation
determinants caused by littering. However, findings illustrate a
state possessing southern-style Traditionalistic political culture
and/or substantial concentrations of impoverished residents
negatively affect its livability score. A state’s concentration of
impoverished individuals influence a chance to have waste disposal
prices below the national market average, yet a state having
beverage container return deposits influence a heightened waste
disposal price for that state.